I knew this because I had been the one to fix the error decades ago. Some lazy clerk in the county records office had pulled the outdated 1971 sheet for this work order, completely missing my painstakingly corrected filings from 1974.

The 1971 map had a known discrepancy due to a shift in the road alignment that was never fully accounted for at the time.

When I took over the district in the early seventies, I made it my mission to clean up those old messy records. I spent weeks out here recalculating and properly marking the bounds. That bur oak was perfectly safe, completely outside the county’s right-of-way, provided you were actually looking at the right documents.

I spent Monday evening digging through my basement. Behind boxes of Christmas decorations and old photo albums, I found my original field notes and my old transit. It was heavy, brass, and built to outlast a nuclear war. Just holding it brought back a flood of memories from my career—the satisfaction of geometry, the undeniable truth of a properly run line.

I set my alarm for four in the morning. By sunup on Tuesday, long before the tree crew even had their first cup of coffee, I was out in the crisp, quiet morning air. The grass was wet with heavy dew, soaking my boots, but I hardly noticed.

I set up my instrument on the known control points I had established all those years ago. It felt like muscle memory. I turned the angles, pulled the tape, and painstakingly staked the true property line myself. I drove heavy wooden stakes into the ground at regular intervals, signing and dating every single marker with a thick black permanent marker.

The line was undeniable. It clearly showed the easement passing safely to the side of my oak tree, leaving it entirely on my private property.

By the time I was finished, my back ached and my hands were cold, but I felt a profound sense of satisfaction.

I went inside, poured myself a cup of black coffee, and waited by the front window. At exactly eight o’clock, the roar of diesel engines shattered the morning peace. The trucks rolled back in, tires crunching on the gravel. The foreman hopped out of his truck, looking annoyed that my car was still parked near the work zone.

He marched up to the house, hard hat on, ready to give me a piece of his mind and finally fire up those chainsaws to show the stubborn old lady who was boss. I stepped out onto the porch, holding my coffee mug. I didn’t say a word at first.

I just walked down the steps and pointed at the ground, gesturing to the fresh line of wooden stakes that now separated his crew from my tree. “Measure it yourself, son,” I told him quietly, my voice steady and completely devoid of the panic he had expected.

He stopped in his tracks, giving me a smug, exasperated look.